The Other Side of the Door

by Nicci French

  We drove in silence, me at the wheel and Sonia studying the road atlas we’d found in the car, giving me terse directions. Police cars came at me out of alleys and parked on blind corners; lights flashed blue and sirens wailed in the night. In the rear-view mirror, I saw eyes watching me. I sat up quite straight, pinned my gaze on the road ahead. Our heavy load dragged at my mind. The car was a coffin, a little tin coffin. London dwindled, and at last the headlights were picking out hedges, fields and trees, and finally a tarmac track. The gates were locked and for a moment we nearly gave up – I nearly gave up, putting my head on the steering-wheel and saying over and over again, ‘It doesn’t matter, it’s all over.’ Sonia remained calm. She examined the map and directed me round to the other side where there was another entrance. Glinting black waters of the reservoir, sailing boats lined up on the shore, rattling and tinkling in the small breaths of wind.

  Before

  ‘I don’t know if it’s a good idea,’ I said to Amos.

  We were sitting outside one of those London pubs that used to be a down-at-heel dive, filled with smoke and the smell of stale beer, but had reinvented itself and was now a gastro-pub, serving things like seared scallops on a bed of lentils, or blue-cheese and poached-pear salad – which was what I was eating. Amos had a steak sandwich. The sun poured down from a clear blue sky. We’d done this so many times before – sat outside a pub talking, making plans.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because.’ I made a vague gesture with my hands. If he didn’t know, I wasn’t going to say.

  ‘You mean because we used to go out together and now we’ve split up?’

  ‘We didn’t go out together. We lived together. For years.’

  He looked at me. I couldn’t make out his expression: it seemed both scrutinizing and beseeching. ‘It was fun, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Fun? You mean, living together?’

  ‘We had fun.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I replied. Fun, fights, tears, regrets, and a slow, depressing ending. I looked at him: thin, with dark intense eyes and a beaky nose, a shock of dark brown hair. I used to tell him he looked like Bob Dylan – Bob Dylan circa 1966. That was when I still loved him.

  ‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’ He sounded like a small boy.

  ‘It’s not quite as easy as that.’

  ‘That’s up to us.’ He took my hand. I pulled it away. ‘Who else is going to play?’

  ‘Neal – remember him? Then a boy from school and his rich father. Don’t make that face. Oh, and Sonia,’ I added, as if she was an afterthought.

  ‘Sonia?’

  ‘Yes. She’s going to sing.’

  ‘I can imagine her voice,’ he said. ‘Velvety.’

  ‘Hmm. I don’t quite understand why you’re so keen to play in this band, Amos.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’ll be a hoot. And I’m at a loose end.’

  ‘No holiday plans, then?’

  ‘I’m too busy trying to pay off my mortgage to take a holiday this year,’ he said. ‘Or next.’

  Ten months ago, Amos and I had bought a flat together just off the Finchley Road. It was lovely, with tall rooms and big windows and white walls, a balcony for plants. The day we had moved in, a glorious late-September day, we had lain on the carpet together, in the unfurnished, echoing room, and held hands, staring up at the freshly painted ceiling and giggling with happiness and surprise at being so grown-up, so together as a couple because, after all, we weren’t really adults when we met, but footloose and penniless students. When I had left him, or he had left me, or maybe we really had left each other, he had had to buy me out, money I had used to put down as a deposit on my depressing hole in Camden.

  ‘You could always sell it,’ I said unsympathetically. ‘But OK, Amos. Come and play your guitar.’

  ‘It’ll be like the old days.’

  ‘It will not be like the old days.’

  At that moment, a stocky figure came up to us. ‘Bonnie?’

  I tried to place him.

  ‘It’s Frank. We studied music together years ago.’

  ‘Sorry. Wrong context, you know.’

  He took a seat beside us.

  ‘I’d have recognized you anywhere,’ he said. ‘You still look about twelve.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What are you up to nowadays?’

  ‘I teach music at a school near here,’ I said.

  He wrinkled his nose sympathetically. ‘A teacher?’

  ‘Yes.’ I looked at him with dislike, willing him to go away.

  ‘She’s got a band, though,’ Amos put in.

  ‘I haven’t!’

  ‘You’ve got a band? What kind of band? What’s it called?’

  ‘I haven’t got a band and it hasn’t got a name. I’m putting something together for a one-off thing, a friend’s wedding.’

  ‘I’m going to be the guitarist,’ said Amos.

  ‘It’s just an amateur thing, then,’ said Frank, dismissively. ‘I thought you meant something serious.’

  ‘What’s so good about being serious?’ said a voice behind me. I turned in my chair and squinted up to see who was speaking. A tall man with soft brown hair in a wing over his forehead, grey eyes with crows’ marks around them, wide white smile, crumpled shirt.

  ‘This is Hayden,’ said Frank, then added, as if he couldn’t help himself: ‘He plays in a real band.’

  Hayden studied Frank for a moment. His smile disappeared and his face seemed thinner, older, colder. ‘You’re a bit of a tosser, aren’t you?’ he said softly. ‘I play music, that’s all.’

  Frank blushed a deep, unbecoming red. It seeped into his hairline. Even his ears turned red. I almost felt sorry for him. He muttered something about getting a drink and left. Hayden remained. ‘What do you play?’ he asked me.

  ‘Oh, this and that. Piano. Violin.’

  ‘She plays everything,’ said Amos, proudly. He was behaving as if I was his girlfriend again. ‘She only has to pick up an instrument to know how to play it.’

  Hayden ignored him and concentrated on me. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Bonnie.’

  ‘Hello, Bonnie.’

  He held out his hand and I took it. ‘Hi,’ I said. Then: ‘This is Amos.’

  Hayden nodded at him. ‘Sorry about Frank,’ he said. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘No,’ said Amos.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A spicy tomato juice, please.’

  ‘One spicy tomato juice coming up – oh, except I don’t seem to have any change on me.’

  I laughed and stood up. ‘I’ll get it,’ I said. ‘What are you having?’

  ‘A lager, I think. I’ll come with you.’

  We left Amos scowling at the table and stood at the bar. Several people recognized Hayden, calling out in greeting. There was an ease about him, a casual familiarity.

  ‘What kind of music will you be playing in this band?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet – maybe a bit bluegrassy, and country stuff, folk.’

  ‘Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, that kind of thing?’

  ‘Yes! Exactly.’

  ‘I love that. Soulful, spine-tingling music.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Our drinks arrived and we carried them back to the table. Amos was looking sulky. ‘I noticed you didn’t get one for me,’ he said.

  ‘You said you didn’t want one.’

  ‘I thought this was going to be just you and me,’ he muttered, and Hayden raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Sorry, am I interrupting something?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Is there a vacancy?’ asked Hayden.

  ‘Vacancy?’ Amos leaned forward pugnaciously.

  ‘In your band, Bonnie. I’d like to be involved – if you need any help.’

  ‘We don’t need anyone else,’ said Amos. ‘We’re full.’

  Hayden ignored him. ‘Bonnie?’

  ‘You’re probably out of our league.’

  ‘I don’t kno
w what that means,’ he said. He stared at me as if I was a puzzle he was trying to solve. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Are you serious? You don’t even know me.’

  ‘No, but this way I will.’

  Later that day I went with Neal to a little street market in Stoke Newington, near his house. Stalls had been set up under striped awnings, selling local honey, organic vegetables, burgers and sausages in soft white rolls, and also beaded cushions, incense sticks, strings of beads – things whose bright charm fades as soon as you get them home. It was another warm evening and there were swallows among the plane trees.

  When Neal had rung me, he had been awkward, blurting out the invitation, and now he was shy. We wandered among the stalls. I bought us both a glass of white wine that came from an English vineyard and tasted pale and flowery, and he bought a tub of black-bean salad that we shared.

  ‘You know,’ he said, as we stood and watched a man walk by on impossibly tall stilts, ‘I used to be a bit scared of you.’

  ‘Of me? Why?’

  ‘You had that boyfriend – what was his name?’

  ‘Eliot?’

  ‘That’s the one – with a shaved head.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You both used to seem so confident and cool.’

  I laughed.

  ‘No, really. I used to look at you with your weird clothes and think you were this hip couple.’

  ‘So when did you discover the truth and stop being scared of me?’

  ‘I didn’t. I was terrified of ringing you up.’

  I smiled and put my arm through his. ‘Well, I’m very glad you did. You know what I want now?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘One of those enormous chocolate brownies.’

  After

  ‘This is all wrong,’ Sonia said.

  ‘Wrong? How wrong?’

  ‘It’s not the way I remembered it.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Look.’ She gestured out of the window at the shallow gravel shore where boats were turned turtle and lay under their tarpaulins in a long line.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Bonnie.’ She spoke with a stern patience. ‘How are we going to push a car into this? I thought there was a place that went down steeply so we could simply let off the handbrake and roll it.’

  ‘What shall we do?’ I heard the wildness in my voice.

  ‘Hang on.’

  She got out of the car and I joined her. Our feet crunched over the gravel and we stood by the water’s edge, where little ripples ran over the stones.

  ‘That’s what I was remembering.’ Sonia pointed to her left. I could just make out the steep concrete sides of the reservoir wall.

  ‘We can’t get the car there.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So it’s no good.’

  ‘We have to think of something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give me a moment.’

  ‘We could drive the car somewhere else. Push it off a cliff.’

  ‘Which cliff?’

  ‘I don’t know. Cornwall? They have cliffs in Cornwall, don’t they?’

  ‘You want us to drive to Cornwall?’

  ‘It’s an idea anyway.’

  ‘It’ll be light by the time we get there.’

  ‘We could drive there, find somewhere, wait until nighttime and then do it.’

  ‘I don’t think that sounds like a good idea at all.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘We have to do this now, Bonnie. And here.’

  ‘We can’t. You’ve just said so. If we tried, it would just get stuck with the water up to its sills and then where would we be?’

  ‘We can’t push the car in. Maybe that would be riskier anyway.’

  ‘Riskier than what?’

  ‘Than just putting it in the water.’

  ‘You mean the body?’

  Sonia crouched down, twitched the tarpaulin off one of the boats and craned to peer underneath. ‘There’s a pair of oars.’

  ‘I don’t like this.’

  ‘We could put it in the boat, row out and push it in there.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘We’d have to weigh it down first.’ She looked around. ‘There are stones and bits of rubble.’

  I sat down on the shore. The inky water glinted and slapped and a sharp breeze stung my cheeks. I put my head on my knees and wrapped my arms around my legs. If I could make myself very, very small, perhaps I could disappear. ‘I’m not sure I can do this.’

  ‘It’s too late for that, Bonnie,’ Sonia said, with a hissing urgency. ‘If you can’t do it for yourself, you’re going to have to do it for me. You got me into this.’

  ‘You’re right.’ I stood up again. ‘Sorry. Tell me what to do.’

  I walked along the shore, picking up rubble and large stones, then returned to Sonia who had turned over a small boat. ‘Help me drag this to the shore,’ she said.

  Together we pulled it along the shingle until its bow was nosing the water.

  ‘Now the body.’

  Pulling it out of the boot was even harder than getting it in. We had to haul it by the arms. The rug slid off and there was no way of escaping him: how the head bumped and lolled, the legs splayed, the weight of him. I kept my eyes half shut, or sometimes closed them entirely, pulling and jerking blindly. At last he tumbled out and lay at our feet. Without saying anything, Sonia and I took an arm each and dragged him over the gravel.

  ‘How are we going to get it in?’

  ‘If we lean the boat over, we can roll it in, I think.’

  We tipped it onto its side, then stood on the rim to keep it steady and manoeuvred the body until it was draped half over the edge, head in the bottom and legs still on the shore. The body slithered and then collapsed inside. He was face down now. I couldn’t see his eyes any more, just the side of his head and his bloodily matted hair, the havoc of his splayed limbs. Bile rose in my throat and I turned away.

  ‘The rocks,’ said Sonia.

  I handed her a piece of rubble, then reached for another and another and another. I tried not to look at her. Finally she stood up. ‘That should do it,’ she said.

  I put the oars into the rowlocks, then we both took off our shoes, rolled up our trousers and pushed the boat out. It was hard at first for it was heavy now and the bottom scratched against the gravel. We waded forward, up to our calves in the cool water, trying to force it along. My jeans were wet and water splashed up onto my shirt. Then I felt the boat floating free in the water and we clambered in at the back. It rocked violently.

  ‘One oar each,’ said Sonia.

  We sat side by side with the dead bulk of him between us, his arms reaching out, his legs twisted over each other, and rowed in a clumsy and hopeless way, out of synch with each other. The boat seemed scarcely to move. It bobbed and wavered along the shore and only bit by bit did we make any headway out into the open water. It was very quiet: the only sounds were our laboured breathing and the splash of our oars. There was a half-moon, low in the sky, leaving a messy reflection on the surface of the water. But it was dark enough so that we wouldn’t be visible from the shore.

  ‘This must be all right,’ said Sonia at last. ‘It should be deep here.’

  ‘How do we do it?’

  ‘We push it over the edge, head first, maybe.’

  I looked at her in the moonlight. Locks of her hair had escaped and lay across her face, which was pale and set in an expression of determination, and I knew that I had to do this. I nodded.

  ‘Pull it around a bit,’ said Sonia. ‘I’ll try to keep the boat steady.’

  She sat on the other side of the boat and put her feet against the body, pushing it away from her. I took the shoulders and tugged. The boat rocked violently. I set my teeth and jerked him forward some more. The boat heeled, water sloshing over the edge, and Sonia inadvertently cried out in alarm as I dived towards the middle to keep us from slithering into the water. I f
ell on top of him, huddled for a moment with my head on his shoulder.

  ‘You’ll have us in,’ Sonia gasped.

  ‘It’s not working. I can’t shift him enough.’

  ‘Ease him over the back.’

  Together we pulled him up the boat. Now his arms were hanging over the stern. We tugged some more and now his bashed head was there too. The boat heaved from side to side. What if it tipped over? There was an obscene bumping as we got his shoulders over. The back of the boat was dangerously low in the water and the bow reared up. Without a word, we heaved and jerked him some more. I could feel his soft belly under my fingers, the waistband of his jeans rough against my knuckles. Now his head was in the water, his hair floating like seaweed on the surface. One more push and he was slithering in, going down like a diver in search of treasure, like a drowning man, his clothes catching brief bubbles of air, his arms curling back against his body, his legs sliding through the dark, rippling surface. And suddenly the boat was steady in the water again. Its heavy load was gone. He was gone. There was nothing to show he had ever been there. I leaned over the edge of the boat and was sick, violently retching up all the contents of my stomach. After, I scooped up a handful of water and washed my face.

  Then I sat down at my oar again and we rowed back. It was much easier without him. We clambered out, dragged the boat up the shore, removed the oars from the rowlocks and turned the boat turtle once more, stowing the oars underneath and replacing the heavy tarpaulin. Sonia found our shoes and we put them on, standing in the dim moonlight with the waters making a faint lapping sound behind us.

  After several moments Sonia put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Let’s go back,’ she said.